I would
not choose to write on dark, communist, times, as long as the architects of the
Red Holocaust are not yet punished. Moreover, they arrogantly run the country’s
politics today. But, as I was reading an article on the life of dissident
Klement Islami, the lamenting voice of a young lady from Durres came from deep inside my soul and
woke me up from this mindset. She was pleading, “Doctor, will you have to
amputate my leg? Please doctor, heal me! I am still young!”

It was
1977, and I was assigned to work at the GeneralSurgeryHospital in Elbasan, Albania as a medical practitioner. The
hospital was recently built, and it neighbored the ElbasanPsychiatric Hospital. A shallow ditch and a partially
collapsed fence divided the two, huge, buildings. People spoke of the hospital
with a secretive undertone and referred to it as a place of isolation for
selected individuals, enemies of the regime. The word was out that the State
Security had cherry-picked doctors to intentionally abuse the patients who were
incarcerated in that Hell against their will.

“What is
your name?” I asked the young lady who was uncontrollably crying in pain. In a
broken voice, she somberly said, “Zana, Zana Dhroso.” “Stretch out your leg,” I
told her, and I began to probe her red, swollen, and infected knee. Each time I
touched it, she bit her lips, dry and split down the middle due to the various
medications she was taking. “Stay strong,” I said. After I injected a local
anesthesia, I opened the wound and pressed gauze onto it to drain the massive
infection, which had spread all over her knee. Just as I finished cleaning the
huge wound, a weak voice pleaded, “Doctor, are you going to amputate my leg?
Please, do not cut it off! I am young! It’s the second time I have had
abscessed wounds.” “No,” I told her. “Your leg will heal.” Her fragile, long,
elegant, fingers tightened around my hands as a sign of gratitude.

The
senior doctors knew what caused those huge abscessed wounds. I heard that
patients brought to the hospital on court order, were injected with pine resin.
The injection aimed to paralyze them and ensure they were unable to flee from
the prison hospital. I had not previously received the chance to see a case up
close or to treat it. I was then, deeply troubled, and I told my father Doctor
Stiliano Nosi. He sadly confirmed the practice. He was also an acquaintance of
Zana’s father, Doctor Dhroso. My father advised me to especially care for her,
and I did. I treated her even after she was sent back to the Psychiatric
Hospital.

One day
on my hospital rounds, I crossed the path separating the two hospitals, and I
saw Zana and her father sitting on the only bench facing the street. Doctor
Dhroso, a nobleman worn down by age and agony for his daughter, addressed me in
a soft, pleading voice. He showered me with blessings to show his gratitude for
his daughter’s medical treatment. His eyes frequently welled up while he patted
Zana’s hands that were shaking uncontrollably. Moved by the image the two, poor
creatures left on me, I searched to find out why the young lady from Durres was incarcerated in a psychiatric
hospital.

***

At a high
school in the city of Durres, a brave act occurred that was
never heard before. A female student took down the portrait of the monstrous,
communist, dictator Enver Hoxha, and she threw it onto the cement floor. The
picture broke into pieces in front of all students. The heroic, young, lady,
forgotten by the Post-Communist era, was Zana Dhroso.